152 Chapter IV. 



"mammy," that a young rooster became a rooster 

 and not a jackdaw, so no intelligence of the ant is 

 responsible for the fact, that from the egg and the 

 larva which she nurses, there emerges not a bee but an 

 ant. All this is self-evident. Yet, the peculiar organic 

 laws of development not only form the material 

 of the breeding instincts, but also their directing 

 principle. The breeding instincts of the different 

 species are so well adapted to the hidden laws of 

 organic growth, that no reflection or intelligence on 

 the part of the animal, nay, not even the keenest human 

 reason could ever succeed in inventing them. More- 

 over, they are exercised by the workers completely and 

 perfectly, without previous experience or instruction; 

 they are innate in the animal, and grow with it, 

 and when the young ant has reached the perfection of 

 its organic development, they, likewise, are just as 

 perfectly developed. Hence they must spring from 

 the same source as the organic growth, that is to say, 

 they spring from the or 'ganico- psychic laivs of devel- 

 opment of a given species, and have nothing to do 

 with individual reason and free determination. As 

 it is by organic development, that the male of an 

 ant-species receives also the psychic endowment of a 

 male, thus it is with the females and the workers. The 

 distribution of psychic endowments in the different 

 castes of an ant-state is regulated by the same laws 

 as their bodily polymorphism. And this alone accounts 

 for the fact, that within one and the same species the 

 males are the most stupid members of the whole state, 

 possessing the smallest brains, whilst the workers are 

 endowed with many marvelous instinctive talents and 



